Chapter 25: Anomaly Beyond the Tribe

After eating the ferocious beast meat they spoke of for several days straight, Yun Li finally, on the sixth day, successfully broke through the Red Stage.

However, the process Leng Xiu and the others used to teach Yun Li hunting was not smooth; it wasn't that Yun Li's learning ability was poor or hard to teach, but that the beasts in the forest seemed overly frantic.

Clearly the most harmless ground rabbit, timid and especially small, could only dig holes and run fast, but when Yun Li first took beast form to catch such a rabbit, she unusually was attacked proactively by the rabbit.

If it were just that, it would be tolerable, but who could tell Yun Li that other herbivorous small animals had also begun to show aggression?

An antelope was drinking at the lake's edge, and Yun Li, hidden in the shadows, timed her leap, but just as she rose, a nearby gray wolf that had been staring at her snatched her by the neck and rolled her out of the grass.

The hard‑won chance vanished, and Yun Li was so angry she nearly blew a fuse, but she quickly understood why Leng Xiao had snatched her away, as a gray wild boar was panting and barreling into the grass where she had just been.

"Awo?"

"What the heck?"

"Didn't they say gray boars never attack on their own? I wasn't even targeting it just now!"

Yun Li found it incomprehensible; this was already the second time.

The first time was that ground rabbit; Yun Li had just approached when it almost ambushed her, kicking her in the face. She instinctively retreated, but the rabbit, instead of fleeing, oddly charged at her; finally Yun Li clawed its face, and while the rabbit was dazed, she struck it hard, knocking it out.

"howl"

Because they are both wolf‑beast people, when Leng Xiao spoke in beast form, Yun Li could understand him.

At that moment he said, "The situation is off; stay behind me and don't come out."

The gray boar's hooves dug into the mud, seeming to want to keep coming up, but Leng Xiao just stood there; when one paw stepped slightly forward, the boar sensed danger, turned its head and fled.

"Let's go, we'll follow and see."

Such abnormal occurrences are the greatest taboo in hunting, so Leng Xiao simply halted his instruction to Yun Li, calling her over to follow and observe why the gray boar behaved this way.

The antelope by the lake, having heard the commotion nearby, had already fled.

Two wolves, one ahead of the other, pursued the gray boar; shortly after the boar ran away, it ran into a green python lying in wait.

"Ang~"

The green python's appearance was extremely sudden; from Yun Li's perspective, the gray boar first let out a terrified howl and thrashed, then the python's long body rose from the ground littered with dead branches and leaves, and it tightly coiled around the boar.

The boar's struggling grew weaker under the chokehold, until it ceased.

Leng Xiao instinctively turned to look at Yun Li, but by then Yun Li no longer felt the fear of her first encounter with such a slaughter scene; noticing his glance, she instead cast a puzzled questioning look.

"What's wrong?"

She neither stepped back nor was far from him, and she didn't make any noise to disturb the green python that was feeding.

He turned his head to see what she was doing.

Leng Xiao fell silent for a moment, then said, "It's fine."

He just wished Yun Li would be a bit closer to him; A Li's beast form was even more beautiful than they imagined, and her eyes were ice‑blue.

Upon first seeing her beast form, Leng Xiao couldn't help but wildly wag his tail before her, seeking affection; his brother wagged his tail too, though not as fast.

Unfortunately, the Original Owner's father had left too early and never taught the Original Owner wolf‑beast people that tail‑wagging signifies courtship, so Yun Li was completely oblivious and instead asked the two wolves where water was,

which gave Mu Qing, who had followed from the start, a good laugh before he finally walked away relieved.

"Where are we going next?"

The gray boar was gone, and Yun Li didn't know what to observe anymore.

This is her first day learning hunting; she lacks much wilderness knowledge, knowing only basic facts like navigation, which plants are edible, and which beasts she can currently provoke.

"Let's find a place to rest; when my brother returns from hunting, we'll ask him what's going on."

As he spoke, Leng Xiao turned to Yun Li and explained about the green python, "Such pythons normally don't come out to hunt near noon unless they haven't succeeded in feeding for several days, or they've sensed danger and need to flee, so they eat a full meal before running."

"Then which situation do you think it is?"

Yun Li recalled that wild beasts are usually highly sensitive to approaching danger, so a python breaking its routine to hunt, combined with the earlier abnormal aggression of herbivorous small beasts, led her to lean toward the latter explanation.

Leng Xiao: "It could be a heavy rain or an early drought, but since we both noticed it, there should be beast‑people in the Tribe who will inform the chieftain; we won't be in trouble."

As an indigenous of this world, he obviously understands better what events might follow such an anomaly.

Hearing that, Yun Li nodded; with Mu Qing present, she naturally wasn't worried about trouble, thinking she would be the first to suffer.

"But heavy rain?"

"Is heavy rain normal during the tide season? Would the Tribe's water rise like in the rainy season, flooding part of the beast‑people's dwellings and forcing them to move to mountain caves?"

In the Original Owner's memories, there was no abnormal heavy rain during the tide season, though during the rainy season, when the rain was torrential, she could sometimes stay indoors and still fish the fish‑beasts with vines.

However, water reaching the cave entrances was still very rare; if it happened often, the Tribe's communal food stores couldn't sustain.

In a water‑logged rainy season, only the fish‑beasts in the water could be caught, and not all fish‑beasts are edible; plus entering the water was too dangerous. To limit casualties, the Tribe's harvest then was far less than at other times, and the cold season relied entirely on communal food.

They would supplement more intensively the following year.

"It seems this happened before; after a few rains right after the cold season, the Tribe was flooded, and many beast‑people died."

Leng Xiao and his brother grew up following the Tribe's elder beast‑people, and later mixed with the Hunting Squad's beast‑people, so they knew quite a bit about the Tribe's affairs.

"That incident left a heavy lesson for the Tribe, so after we return, the chieftain will probably order my brother and me back to the Hunting Squad, and then we won't have time to bring you out to learn hunting."

Yun Li raised her eyes in surprise and asked, "Do you take turns going out to gather herbs or to hunt more prey?"